--397

That whenever news reached him of another Federal disaster Abraham Lincoln would laugh it off with a very funny and often somewhat s.m.u.tty story, made up on the spot.

--398

That George Washington died of a heavy cold brought on by swimming the Potomac in the heart of winter to visit a yellow girl on the Maryland sh.o.r.e.

--399

That all negroes who show any intelligence whatever are actually two-thirds white, and the sons of United States Senators.

--400

That the late King Leopold of Belgium left 350 illegitimate children.

--401

That Senator Henry Cabot Lodge is a very brainy man, though somewhat stuck up.

--402

That if one eats ice-cream after lobster one will be doubled up by belly-ache.

--403

That Quakers, for all their religion, are always very sharp traders and have a great deal of money hidden away in banks.

--404

That old baseball players always take to booze, and so end their days either as panhandlers, as night watchmen or as janitors of Odd Fellows'

halls.

--405

That the object of the players, in college football, is to gouge out one another's eyes and pull off one another's ears.

--406

That the sort of woman who carries around a Pomeranian dog, if she should ever have a child inadvertently, would give the midwife $500 to make away with it.

--407

That a woman likes to go to a bargain sale, fight her way to the counter, and have pins stuck into her and her feet mashed by other women.

--408

That, if one swallows an ounce of olive oil before going to a banquet, one will not get drunk.

--409

That a mud-turtle is so tenacious of life that if one cuts off his head a new one will grow in its place.

--410

That the only things farmers read are government doc.u.ments and patent-medicine almanacs.

--411

That if one's ear itches it is a sign that some one is talking of one.

--412

That Italian children, immediately they leave the cradle, are sewed into their underclothes, and that they never get a bath thereafter until they are confirmed.

--413

That all Catholic priests are very hearty eaters, and have good wine cellars.

--414

That politics in America would be improved by turning all the public offices over to business men.

--415

That department store sales are always fakes, and that they mark down a few things to attract the women and then swindle them by lifting the prices on things they actually want.

--416

That 100,000 abortions are performed in Chicago every year.